The festival<\/a> is expected to draw audiences from across Florida, supporting local businesses and contributing to the city\u2019s growing cultural tourism landscape. It also means a lot to Orlando\u2019s Black population. <\/p>\nThe man behind the festival is a Florida native, Jerry Jasmin, who has made it his mission to bring jazz to central Florida and beyond. Blavity spoke with Jasmin about the festival and his expansion plans.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Congratulations on your inaugural jazz festival. Talk to me a little bit about your background with loving jazz music and your journey with the genre.<\/p>\n
I wouldn\u2019t consider myself a musician, but I am a former music producer, and in my time producing music, I always loved infusing jazz chords into my beats, even if I was producing trap\/rap, I tried to find a way to put jazz in there because I just love how those chords make me feel or make people feel in general. I\u2019d say when I first fell in love with jazz was when my dad used to take me to the beach down in South Florida, and we\u2019d ride back, and he\u2019d listen to Hot 105, and we\u2019d listen to smooth jazz. Funny enough, I don\u2019t like smooth jazz as much these days, but that\u2019s kind of where my first interactions with jazz started.<\/p>\n
How long has this festival been in the works? Talk to me about its inception to now.<\/p>\n
So, when we started the Orlando Jazz Collective in 2023, we always had the thought of producing a larger festival, but we had to start with smaller shows. I\u2019d say in our second year, actually in our first year, Theo Crocker, who is one of the artists that\u2019s performing at the festival, he told me, \u2018What you guys are doing is great, but you guys really need to look into building a festival here.\u2019 So he was one of the first, I guess, I won\u2019t say evangelist, but he dropped the first seed and planted the first seed for us to start producing this jazz festival. So then the following year, I saw that the name Orlando Jazz Festival was available, and I purchased it, and we\u2019ve been planning ever since. So it\u2019s been about 2+ years.<\/p>\n
Is there already a jazz festival here in Orlando or close by, or is this the first one and or the first one of its kind?<\/p>\n
Great question. So there was an Orlando Jazz Festival prior. I\u2019m not sure what happened, but the name was available, so we jumped on it. There are other festivals locally, but there\u2019s not one centered in Orlando and called the Orlando Jazz Festival. You have different communities. But to answer your question about the first of this kind, I believe this is the first where we\u2019re seeking national Black and brown artists to come and play in Orlando, and really putting that on a pedestal.<\/p>\n
Talk to me a little bit about whether there\u2019s significance in where it\u2019s being held.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s at the center of Orlando, close to downtown, but, from an aesthetic standpoint, it\u2019s on a lake. So the stage is going to be lakeside. It\u2019s going to be extremely lush and serene. So it\u2019s going to be real vibey.<\/p>\n
How did you go about solidifying the performers for the festival? And has it been a difficult undertaking?<\/p>\n
So in terms of the artists, I\u2019ve been blessed to be able to form really strong relationships with the artists that we\u2019ve worked with in the past with the Orlando Jazz Collective. We treat people really well, so that translates beyond the folks I can touch. People can see that. And the artists tell their friends. So through the artists that we\u2019ve worked with, we\u2019ve been able to build a network and relationships with their friends and their agents and their agent\u2019s friends. So I\u2019d say building the lineup was probably the hardest thing to do, but it felt very easy to me.<\/p>\n
I carefully curated the lineup through music I like, but I\u2019m also watching to see what other people like. I look at the other jazz festivals and jazz clubs around the country and see who\u2019s performing there and who\u2019s selling out the shows, and what does jazz specifically mean to the audience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Festivals are kind of the thing of this generation now, and they are popping up everywhere at every level.\u00a0 But for you to choose jazz, that\u2019s very niche. It\u2019s a personal thing to you. But what\u2019s the feeling you get from it?<\/p>\n
I think the term I could use is just high vibrations, just elevated. It is an elevated ambiance, but just overall a good feeling. It can appear to be niche, but jazz is very fundamental to many different genres, including R&B, hip hop, gospel, and even rock n roll and blues. So I don\u2019t think it\u2019s niche, but the term I would use to describe how I feel, what it means to me is just high vibrations.<\/p>\n
What can we expect from the festival outside of the live performances? I\u2019m sure it\u2019s going to be vendor, food, and different activities.<\/p>\n
Yes. It\u2019s going to be all of the above: live music, food, vendors, and different activations. The one being one that I think pairs well with jazz is that we are going to have a cigar lounge there, so that\u2019s going to be pretty cool for the cigar smokers out there, enjoy some curated craft cocktails. And it\u2019s going to be an overall a good time.<\/p>\n
Where did your entrepreneurial endeavors begin?<\/p>\n
I was in grad school, and I started Tree Drop LLC, which started off as just a Christmas tree delivery service, the first of its kind, the first Christmas tree delivery app in the U.S. App Store, and it was made by a Black man. And that has grown. We\u2019re about to celebrate our 10th season this year. That has grown to a full-scale holiday decor business and a holiday lighting business. We\u2019ve worked with notable organizations like the Orlando Magic, Ferrari of Central Florida, the Morris Children\u2019s Hospital. So I\u2019m really proud of that. That was my first baby. And my wife and I run a vending business as well, my wife and my sister-in-law.<\/p>\n
In terms of the Orlando Jazz Collective, we\u2019re looking to grow that and really anchor the festival and other year-round programming as something people want to come see in Orlando. The city has 77 million visitors annually. I think it\u2019s important to add a little cultural flavor in the mix and another reason for people to want to come to Orlando.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That was something else that I wanted to talk about, too. The cultural aspect of it, because when I think of Orlando, I don\u2019t think of us necessarily. Yes, people travel to Orlando for the magic of the parks and the sunshine. It\u2019s a great family vacation spot. But in terms of culture, I think Miami. Talk to me about filling that void in Orlando.<\/p>\n
When I travel \u2013 we lived in LA for a little while \u2013 but I\u2019ve traveled to different cities, and I see the camaraderie amongst Black folks and how they surround jazz, how they support jazz. We lived in LA, and folks used to line up to get into jazz clubs.\u00a0 Down here, jazz is still very, very niche, and it feels unapproachable. So I think that it\u2019s important for us to rally around an art form that is foundationally a Black American art form, and it speaks to high intellect but also high vibration, so it makes you feel good, but it\u2019s also something that you can learn from. It\u2019s an intellectual art form. I aspire to build that community here and give us something to be proud of and to drive in and fly in talent to want to come here and congregate together with other Black folks.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve spoken a bit about the Orlando Jazz Collective. For those unfamiliar, explain what it is.<\/p>\n
The Orlando Jazz Collective is a 501c3 nonprofit; it\u2019s an arts organization. We started off in 2023. Our first artist was Braxton Cook who we hosted down here, and he\u2019s been here several times since. He\u2019s also coming back to the festival. We have worked with Theo Croker, Maurice Mo Betta Brown, who\u2019s a Grammy winner. We have worked with Javier Santiago, Butcher Brown, the latter is a super dope band out of Richmond, Virginia, and then our last show in May of 2025 was with Grammy Award winning trumpeter Keyon Harold as well, who did the horns on Pretty Wings by Maxwell and has worked with Jay-Z. He is a super, super dope, dope guy, a super dope artist.<\/p>\n
I did kind of start a spinoff from Orlando Jazz Collective called The Traveling Jasmine, where I traveled to different areas in the country, and hopefully in the world, and document it and interview these jazz artists to show them in a different light as well. But I think something I really wanted to say is the level of artistry that we\u2019re bringing here is something to be considered when thinking about coming to our events. We\u2019re not just obviously there are many talented people and jazz artists here in Orlando or musicians in general, but the guys that we\u2019re bringing down are world-traveled. They do this day in and day out. They\u2019re award-winning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Terrace Martin, for example, was just nominated for two Grammys this year. He was very instrumental in Kendrick Lamar\u2019s early sound, and he was really part of that production.\u00a0 So it\u2019s important for people to understand you\u2019re not just going to hear straight-ahead jazz when you come to our shows. You\u2019re going to hear an infusion. You\u2019ll have hip hop, R&B, a little bit of it all. Theo Crocker just released a song that came out of Ari Lennox\u2019s latest album. These guys aren\u2019t just straight-ahead jazz. It\u2019s going to be a really good time overall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This Black History Month, Blavity is looking at community institutions that are\u00a0Buying Back the Block. The Orlando Jazz…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,141,140],"class_list":["post-167866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}